Recently Google maps changed something, I don’t know what, and it’s broken a feature I use a lot. Very annoying.

I keep a custom google map where I mark the locations I need to be for upcoming appointments and events. I list them in date order. This has worked great for me, with all the running around I do, for the last year — especially via mobile.

BUT… Sometime in the last couple of weeks, Google maps stopped respecting the order I specify for places on my map. It’ll let me reorder locations in my map, and save them — but that order only last the session. When I reload the map, all my newer locations are back down on the bottom of the list!

There’s a Google Maps Forum thread on this, but so far no help.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem or get around it?

It’s even more annoying because Google Maps’ “starred places” function doesn’t let me add notes, or specify a custom order. So that’s not really a solution for me.

But I’ve been logging a lot of cool mobile stuff for CNN.com Tech. So here’s a quick list of what I’ve been covering there…

My picks for the most significant posts:

• March 4: Why Amazon would be smart to give away the Kindle. I read some posts advocating this move, so I pulled them together and added my own thoughts. This post attracted a surprising amount of attention — I’ll have to revisit it.
• March 16: Local news, information are going mobile big time, Pew survey says. This post didn’t get a ton of attention or comment, but because I’m a cofounder of Oakland Local, this topic was near and dear to me. This also presented an important opportunity to discuss the local impact of the mobile digital divide.
• April 5: Facebook reaching out to feature-phone users. Facebook’s upgrade and consolidation of its mobile web sites is its second recent major move to improve access and user experience for feature phone users. Smart strategy for this company. I explain why.
• March 28: BlackBerry’s PlayBook tablet may face uphill battle. Oh yeah, this post brought me tremendous grief from BlackBerry fanboys and trolls. To be fair, I should have clarified that with this device, BlackBerry will debut the QNX operating system it just acquired. But this is targeted as a consumer device — and among consumers, the BlackBerry brand has a pretty bad rep for user experience. It’s a great brand for messaging-minded business users, but the consumer market is different. I think BlackBerry will have to do a hell of a lot of expensive marketing to communicate about the new OS and overcome that preconception. Furthermore, I expect that most consumers will misunderstand how the Playbook will really handle Android apps, and may end up feeling misled. We’ll see. I plan to talk to some developers of Android apps to see how eager they are to port to the Playbook.

My other recent CNN.com Tech posts:

• April 5: Boost Mobile scores highest among no-contract phone owners. I pay a fortune for my Verizon Droid Incredible plan, but when I bought it last summer there weren’t any good Android options on month-to-month no-contract plans. That’s starting to change, and when I upgrade my phone when this contract runs out, I’ll probably go this route. Useful to see how customers are rating these carriers.
• March 30: Android is the Windows of mobile platforms. I wrote this soon after my controversial BlackBerry Playbook post, so I was a bit fed up with tech fanboys and trolls. I’d been meaning to write this post for awhile, but I’ve gotta admit — I decided to go for it in part as a “bring it on!” to the tech trolls. But it attracted relatively civil comments and little criticism. The best laid plans…
• March 29: Mobile banking is booming, survey shows. I was especially intrigued by this finding: a quarter of smartphone users reported, “Accessing my account through my cell phone is too slow.” Yet only 9% of feature phone users had the same complaint! Really different expectations among these two user groups. I think that’s worth further research.
• March 21: Only one in four mobile apps engages user, study says. The results of this research didn’t surprise me — but it’s yet another reason why you should only build a native app when that’s the best way to offer a compelling experience. For the vast majority of content offerings, the mobile web is a better strategy.
• March 21: More apps may be coming for feature phones, too. Facebook bought Snaptu, a major platform for Java-based apps that run on most feature phones. I think this has wider implications — including that in the long run, as smartphone browsers improve, apps might become more of a feature phone phenomenon. Will keep an eye on this.
• March 18: What a Sprint-T-Mobile merger could mean for wireless users. Yeah, like a lot of tech reporters, I was on the wrong track here. While I was researching it, I remember thinking “Why the hell would a CDMA-based carrier buy a GSM network? That’d be a tech nightmare!” Wish I’d followed that thought further. A couple of weeks later, news broke that AT&T is trying to buy T-Mobile. Oh well.
• March 18: Google Maps’ Android app now routes drivers around traffic. As a car-free person, living in an urban area, I want this for biking directions. Maybe later…
• March 14: Adobe caves in to Apple: fewer blank spots on i-devices?. Yes, anytime I mention Apple, it gets a ton of attention and criticism. Couple that with a mention of a long-standing and confusing tech industry controversy, and it’s a flamefest. Despite the high troll potential, I’ll probably revisit this at some point. I will say that Adobe’s PR has been very constructive in how they’ve been reaching out to me on this.
• March 4: More U.S. consumers buying Android phones than iPhones, BlackBerrys. New data from Nielsen showed that slightly more U.S. consumers are buying Android phones than any other type of smartphone. Yeah, this post brought out lots of tech fanboys and trolls.
• Feb 28: Immigrants more inclined to use tablet computers, study shows. This was a small study, but an interesting one. Possible explanation suggested by a commenter: “The reason for the disparity is because a tablet can boot up a keyboard in any language you want — while on a laptop you’re stuck with a QWERTY keyboard.”
• Feb 25: Android users wait and wait for OS updates. At the time, owners of the Samsung Captivate (AT&T’s flavor of the Galaxy S series) were still waiting to get updated to Android 2.2 (Froyo). They’ve since gotten that update — but I learned that Samsung has a pretty bad repuation regarding firmware updates. Bear that in mind if you’re shopping for a smartphone
• Feb 18: One-third of U.S. households lack broadband Web access. About the newNational Broadband Map, and a major year-end roundup report on the wireless industry, both from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA).

You could try to figure that out by looking at the coverage maps the carriers all provide, but take that information with a big grain of salt. Those maps often overstate the reach, strength, and quality of their coverage, and they don’t give detail down to the block level.

On CNN.com Tech today, I wrote about two projects where mobile users are creating their own maps of carrier coverage:

Crowdsourced maps help mobile users compare network reliability

These efforts are handled via iPhone and Android apps — which means that BlackBerry, Palm, and feature phone users can’t participate in making these maps. But the maps (which you can view on Open Signal Maps and RootMetrics) are potentially useful to anyone.

…Well, at least, to anyone in a major metro area, so far. There’s sparse reporting from other regions, but the more people who use these apps, the better these maps will get.

I really like these projects, not least because they’re an important way to hold wireless carriers accountable for delivering the speed and coverage they advertise. They’re also useful if you want to figure out whether your carrier is throttling your data.

I wrote more about this for the Knight Digital Media Center at USC site: US Census upgrades American FactFinder tool, new data coming soon | Knight Digital Media Center.

singlesmap

*Livestock statistics not included

Seriously, this interactive singles map is fun. I just wish there was a poly version!

Thanks to Allan Jenkins for the pointer.

Recently I wrote about how a Los Angeles Police Dept. geocoding data glitch yielded inaccurate crime maps at LAPDcrimemaps.org and the database-powered network of hyperlocal sites, Everyblock.

On Apr. 8, Everyblock founder Adrian Holovaty blogged about the two ways his company is addressing the problem of inaccurate geodata.

1. Latitude/longitude crosschecking. “From now on, rather than relying blindly on our data sources’ longitude/latitude points, we cross-check those points with our own geocoding of the address provided. If the LAPD’s geocoding for a particular crime is significantly off from our own geocoder’s results, then we won’t geocode that crime at all, and we publish a note on the crime page that explains why a map isn’t available. (If you’re curious, we’re using 375 meters as our threshold. That is, if our own geocoder comes up with a point more than 375 meters away from the point that LAPD provides, then we won’t place the crime on a map, or on block/neighborhood pages.)
2. Surfacing ungeocoded data. “Starting today, wherever we have aggregate charts by neighborhood, ZIP or other boundary, we include the number, and percentage, of records that couldn’t be geocoded. Each location chart has a new “Unknown” row that provides these figures. Note that technically this figure includes more than nongeocodable records — it also includes any records that were successfully geocoded but don’t lie in any neighborhood. For example, in our Philadelphia crime section, you can see that one percent of crime reports in the last 30 days are in an ‘unknown’ neighborhood; this means those 35 records either couldn’t be geocoded or lie outside any of the Philadelphia neighborhood boundaries that we’ve compiled.”

These strategies could — and probably should — be employed by any organization publishing online maps that rely on government or third-party geodata.

Holovaty’s post also includes a great plain-language explanation of what geodata really is and how it works in practical terms. This is the kind of information that constitutes journalism 101 in the online age.

(NOTE: I originally published this post in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

lacrime

LAPDcrimemaps.org has some recently revealed geodata flaws.

Crime maps are one of the most popular and (in urban areas) ubiquitous types of geo-enabled local news — and they’re a staple of the Knight News Challenge-funded project Everyblock. This data comes from local police departments — but how reliable is it?

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported a problem with the Los Angeles Police Department’s online crime map, launched three years ago…

“LAPDcrimemaps.org is offered to the public as a way to track crimes near specific addresses in the city of Los Angeles. Most of the time that process worked fine. But when it failed, crimes were often shown miles from where they actually occurred.

“Unable to parse the intersection of Paloma Street and Adams Boulevard, for instance, the computer used a default point for Los Angeles, roughly 1st and Spring streets. Mistakes could have the effect of masking real crime spikes as well as creating false ones.”

Apparently the LAPD wast not aware of the error until alerted by the Times…

LAPD spokeswoman Mary Grady told the Times that “the department will work with its contractor to make the map as accurate as current technology allows.”

Also, the Times reported: “Alerted to the findings, Lightray Productions, the contractor that designed the LAPD site at a cost of at least $362,000, has promised to fix the problems. …One reason the errors were not caught earlier may be that the LAPD site retains crimes for only six months and allows viewers to see only a seven-day period at a time. The presentation makes some trends, such as the large accumulation of crimes mapped at Civic Center, more difficult to spot.”

Distorted or erroneous geodata, especially from official sources like police departments, can have ripple effects. In this case the LAPD crime data was automatically pulled into, and displayed by, Everyblock — an experimental project funded by the Knight News Challenge. (UPDATE: Everyblock has since implemented some corrective measures to spot and fix source geodata problems in its crime maps.)

In the All Points Blog from Directions Magazine, Adena Schutzberg noted:

“While the Times article highlights some key points about the process of geocoding and why the error was not found sooner (the app only shows data back a week, making such spikes less obvious) it missed out on some other points including:

• Different applications use different geocoding algorithms.
• Different applications use different data against which to geocode.
• Sharing raw data (vs. maps) can help identify such errors.

Schutzberg concluded: “My main question is this: Everyblock took the same data feed for its L.A. maps, and it seems, ended up with same inaccuracies. Is that because they use the same geocoding and data against which to geocode? That’s not clear from the Times article.”

If your news organization is using geodata to create interactive online features, you might want to consider ways to double-check for possible accuracy issues, perhaps by checking the results yielded by a different tool set to see if and how it handled the data differently.

(NOTE: I originally published a slightly different version of this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

Recently Frank Taylor blogged about a cool Google Earth trick that could be an intriguing visual online news tool: homemade street views.

The example he cites is from Taiwan, where developer Steven Ho lives. Taylor wrote:

“[Ho] has been waiting for signs Google would bring Street View to Taiwan, but finally couldn’t wait any longer. So, he spent a few days making his own Street View panoramas for National Taiwan University campus. It turns out March is the month when the Indian azalea bloom, so he decided to take his street view photos along the famous Royal Palm boulevard. Steven took the time to not only take 150 panoramas, but also process his KML [Keyhole markup language, which is to Google Earth what HTML is to Web browsers] so it looks and acts just like Google Earth’s Street View imagery. He also added in some 3D buildings for the campus and the palm trees.”

The result is impressive. If you have Google Earth installed (and I recommend upgrading to Google Earth 5.0, which was released in February), then download Ho’s Taiwan street view and open that file in Google Earth. After it zooms in on Taiwan, click on any of the camera icons to start your visual wandering of the campus.

If you don’t have Google Earth, here’s a video screencast of what the experience looks like:

This made me think: What if a news organization offered this kind of immersive experience related to a news story or ongoing topic?…

Google obviously can’t update its street view imagery too often — and even Google’s eyes can’t be everywhere (as the Taiwan project demonstrates). So what if news orgs, journalists, or bloggers rolled their own Google Earth street views to:

• Show the effects of a disaster such as a flood, hurricane, earthquake, or tornado. Or (on the bright side) the effects of a redevelopment project or environmental cleanup.
• Offer unique insight into the local environment: Culture, architecture, economy, etc.
• Walkthrough wayback machine. Overlay original current imagery with historic imagery from Google Earth (or elsewhere) to create a sense of transition from past to present.

It used to be that creating a Google Earth KML layer required a bit of a learning curve. Google’s Panoramio service makes that a bit easier — at least for very basic projects — by allowing you to upload photos and automating the KML generation process. You can also use Panoramio to enable photo browsing via Google Maps street view.

While many Google Earth developers are creating map layers related to current events (like the Fargo flood), there don’t as yet appear to be many mainstream news media projects involving Google Earth (aside from the New York Times and National Geographic).

Google, not surprisingly, generates a Google Earth map layer for Google News — which is a fascinating way to discover current news based on geography. To activate, go to the “layers” menu in the Google Earth sidebar, and expand the “gallery” to view the “Google News” layer.

Seems to me that Google Earth is a field ripe with engaging journalistic opportunity — especially considering the popular Google Earth iPhone application.

There’s a very active Google Earth community where you can find ideas and help. And the Ogle Earth blog by Stefan Greens is a great resource that “documents how Google Earth and other neogeographical tools are affecting geopolitics.” (Read: News value)

(NOTE: I originally published this article in Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.)

This week I’m headed to the Bay Area for an extended visit. I have lots of friends there and there are plenty of cool things to do there. I’ve started mapping all this stuff on a private Google Map — where I’ll be staying, nearby public transit stops, gyms, massage clinics, coffeehouses, music venues, grocery stores, etc. I just assumed that since there’s a pretty good Google Maps app on my iPhone, I’d be able to import all that data easily. Right?

Wrong!

Right now, the closest I can get is to e-mail the link from my private Bay Area map to my iPhone. When I click that link in my iPhone e-mail, the map opens — in the phone’s Safari web browser, not in the Google Maps app. Which makes it much harder to use and far less useful on the go.

I’ve posted a query about this in the Google Maps forum. But so far, I haven’t found a solution.

Does anyone know any tricks for this? Is this something that an iPhone app could be written to support?

gigapan-dc

Gigapan fragment, DC Union Station

Gigapan isn’t brand new, but it’s a fascinating visual tool that allows people to deeply explore panoramic photographs — and to collaboratively tell stories through pictures.

It’s part of Carnegie Mellon University’s Global Connection Project

What’s so cool about Gigapan?

• Conveys a strong sense of place — almost a 3D feel
• People can create their own experience with snapshots
• Provide text or link context
• Allows examination and discussion of details
• Plays nice with Google Earth

I like Gigapan because it offers an experience sort of like this:

More about Gigapan…

Key technologies:

• Robotic camera mount for capturing very high-resolution (gigapixel and up) panoramic images using a standard digital camera. Current cost: $279
• Custom software for constructing very high-resolution gigapixel panoramas
• Interactive web site for exploring, sharing and commenting on gigapixel panoramas and the detail this community discovers within these images
• Google Earth interface allowing you to add a compelling layer of context for panoramic images.

Example Gigapans:

• Boston Back Bay Charles River
• Union Station (almost)
• Palm Deira
• Burning Man 2006

Here, Tom Vilot demonstrates how the robot works to shoot a Gigapan image:

Cool things you can do with a Gigapan image on the Gigapan site:

• Zoom and explore
• Take a snapshot
• Conversations (like this)
• Google Earth browser

Posting images to and participating in Gigapan community makes your story not just about your site! It makes it easy for Gigapan and Google Earth users to connect with you. Especially Google Earth — their user base is HUGE! I’ve seen estimates of 350-400 million downloads — probably higher than number of actual users, but still it’s a LOT of people! Get Google Earth, participate in Google Earth community.)